From The Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Claire Harvey. It's Thursday, December five. Aboriginal leader Noel Pearson says every child should be taught using old fashioned methods proven to work. It comes after Naplan results surged in schools where direct instruction also known as explicit teaching was embraced. Economic growth has hit the skids. It's a lowest rate in history after seven consecutive quarters where we've all felt the pinch.
Now the government is spending through the roof in the bid to avoid a recession. Those stories alive right now at the Australian dot com AU. The NRL is getting a new team and it'll be funded by Australian taxpayers. The addition of a Papua New Guinean footy team is part of the government's diplomatic endeavors in the Pacific. But is it enough to curb China's influence. That's today's story in Papua New Guinea, where tribal tensions run hot and
occasionally turn into mashette powered bloodshed. There's one thing everybody agrees on.
Kicks a cane, Marie are coming through.
Oh what a tie.
Rugby league is the best.
Haf tried to cause his way. Ohm has he got that pull down? That's a big question.
Mark and I think this is gonna be a try celebration.
Referee says it's through.
There's an annual festival of the boot the PNG Prime Minister's thirteen versus an Australian PM side. That's a bit like the Melbourne Cup in Australia. Compulsory viewing.
You really haven't seen anything until you've seen P ANDNG. During a State of Origin game, the whole place is just glued to their TV screens.
Most locals support Queensland and the Morons, but there are enough Blues fans to keep things interesting.
It can actually get quite hairy after the games, and violence and riots and that type of thing can break out. They really did give Australian fans a run for their money.
Papa Ne Guinea has a side in the Queensland Rugby League comp It's famous for fast, aggressive footy, but for nearly two decades P and g's governments have been campaigning for the country to have its own team in the National Rugby League. Now it's happening, and it's Australian taxpayers footing the bill. Ben Packham is the Australian's Foreign Affairs and Defense correspondent. He's usually on the front talking about matters of state, and it turns out this is a matter of state.
The government supporting this bid for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it wants to bring the nations closer together through sport. P ANDNG is rugby league mad and this is something that Australia can do for P and G that no other country can do. Now under the surface, there's also
another important reason, and that is China. The Australian government is, as Pennywong has said, in a constant state of competition with China across the Pacific, and we really need to make sure that China does not increase its influence and its footprint in Pacific nations, but particularly in Papua New Guinea, which is our closest neighbor.
China is unashamedly seeking influence in the Pacific and is already a major trading partner of most of Australia's closest neighbors, as well as the biggest customer for minerals and commodities from timber to fish. China's next goal is to forge security, military and policing arrangements across the region, and in Papua New Guinea's Prime Minister James Marape, they found a leader who says he's willing to talk to any nation that
will help his people. Marape doesn't want aid handouts. He wants development that will make Papua New Guinea, as he says, the world's richest Black Christian nation.
When it comes to the electricity network of our closest neighbor, Australia has been left in the dark.
Papa Your Guinea has revealed it had secret early talks with China on security and policing. That's sent Australia scrambling to be at the table.
Australia promising two hundred million dollars to help bolster p Andng's judiciary and massively scale up its police force, which is grappling with escalating tribal violence.
Prime Minister Albanezi on the Kokoda track alongside the PNG Prime Minister, we are the security partner of choice for Papa in New Guinea.
We're family.
I am very deeply. I called this royal privilege, being the first Prime Minis of my country to address the Australian Parliament.
The negotiations for this agreement have been going for many months and Australia has been working with P and G on the nuts and bolts of how it will all work, as well as the NRL on the financials of how this team will be able to sustain itself, on grassroots game development and so forth. But the Australian government has also suggested that there is a security element to this agreement. Now we've seen the government do some interesting deals around
the region, particularly with Tavaru. The government's Falow Pillar Union agreement with Tavaralu offers permanent visas and migration pathway for Tavaruans in return for a veto over Tavaru's future security agreement and so basically its sidelines China. Now the Australian government's also working on a similar agreement with NAU, which
it hopes to finalize in coming weeks. The P and G NRL deal is another opportunity to put Australia's interest front and center in the Pacific, and the Australian government has intimated that yes, there are security aspects to this agreement. But PNG's Foreign Minister, Justin Chichenko has told The Australian that, in fact, Australia did not insist on a security guarantee
in the final agreement that has been struck here. He says that yes, this was discussed at the highest levels, but ultimately it's totally irrelevant to what they're trying to achieve and they want to keep geopolitics out of this. Now. Australia does have a by lateral security agreement with Papua New Guinea which does include a commitment to consult on any other security tie ups that it might wish to do.
But in terms of this NURL deal, according to the p and G Foreign Minister, there is no explicit security right of veto for Australia.
It's a really interesting choice, isn't it. Ben. Presumably Australia could have chosen to come in quite hard to these negotiations and say, look, we will give you this thing that we know your people want an NRL team, but there's a price to pay, and this is it. If Australia has chosen not to take that path and is going about it a little bit more softly, what do you think that would say about Australia's choices.
Well, they do call this sort of stuff soft diplomacy, so a more measured approach is probably warranted. Pat Conroy, the Australia's Minister for the Pacific, has done a great job here in bringing things to where we are, to the point that this agreement is going to be signed. The NRL's also been central to this in coming to
the party. All will be revealed next week in terms of the agreement, but as far as we know at this stage, and according to Papua New Guinea, there are no explicit guarantees around security.
Coming up. The gritty details of just how a taxpayer funded footy team will work rugby league can be pretty wild.
Camera Monster will go to rehab tomorrow facing one hundred and thirty.
I want all the kids out there tonight and my behavior was not okay.
This is absolutely the last thing the NRL needed. Sex scandal NROL player Latrelle Mitchell has been issued with a breach notice days after a photo leaked onlines on a hotel room coffee table flashing a small ziploc bag full of white powder. Then we know from the amount of time NURL star spending the news that managing an NROL team is incredibly difficult. How's it going to work in practice?
There's been quite a bit of progress on the sort of nuts and bolts of the issue, and just last week PNG are announced in its budget that players for this new franchise will have tax free status for the next decade, so that will assist in attracting Australian and other international players to the team. And you know what, Moresby isn't the safest place. I think is probably putting
it mildly. They do have some domestic security issues and there will be a secure apartment complex built for the players and their family members so that they can live in the PNG capital without sort of fear of being the victims of crime or violence that sadly all too common in the country.
Since China began flexing its muscle in the Pacific and actively courting our direct neighbors, Australia has done a number of things to try to develop a good feeling really
among the people of the Pacific about Australia. One of those is the Pacific Australia Labor Mobility Scheme, where workers come from the islands to work in Australia and are able to send remittances back to their families, often being able to make a huge amount of money, but they wouldn't make in a lifetime at home from a few years of work here in Australia. What do you think about those people to people kind of links, Ben, It seems like the government's really kind of double down on
that as its big idea. Do you think it's the right idea?
I think it's very important. These sorts of things are very important. The Pacific Area of Labor Mobility scheme has been very successful in building those ties between Australia and Pacific countries. The government's also looking at potentially recruiting Pacific people into the Australian Defense Force. That's not quite there yet, but that would also serve to bring Australia closer to its specific neighbors. These are all sorts of things which
China's not in a position to do. They really underscored the historic ties that Australia has with the region. We share history, we share a common language, we enjoy the same sports, and leveraging off those sorts of common interests and common values is really a no brainer when it comes to diplomacy.
Ben Packham is the Australian's Foreign affairs and defense correspondent. You can read his exclusive interview with pg's foreign minister right now at the Australian dot com. Dou